EP #026: What does "good" look like on LinkedIn

Executive Summary:

• Understanding LinkedIn Success Metrics: Clients often ask how their LinkedIn performance compares to others. While success varies based on specific goals, this newsletter provides average performance data for benchmarking.
• Average Post Views: Analysis of 6,940 posts from 43 executives shows that more followers lead to more views. Average views by follower count are:
• Average Likes per Post: Likes are disproportionately higher for executives with larger audiences, indicating a "winner takes all" scenario:
• Frequency of Posting: Executives with the largest audiences post most frequently. Higher posting frequency correlates with better post performance, assuming the content quality remains high.

Deep Dive:

Each quarter, I meet with our clients for a strategic review of their accounts. We go deep into their performance data on LinkedIn and provide recommendations for the following quarter based on that data.

During these meetings, one of the most common questions I receive is: This makes sense…but how does it compare to your other clients?

This response tracks for type-A Executives who want a clear view on what winning looks like. The truth of the matter is that success looks different for each of our clients based on their specific goals (hiring, customer acquisition, fundraising, brand awareness, etc.).

However, I understand the deeper curiosity behind their question: What does ‘good’ look like on LinkedIn?

So, for this week’s newsletter, I wanted to share what our data shows about what average looks like. From there, you can make your own conclusions.

Methodology

For today’s newsletter, I looked at 6,940 posts across 43 executives on LinkedIn who have a similar level of activity. These executives collectively generated over 36,000,000 views on LinkedIn.

I divided this subset into the following groups of followers in order to ensure an equal distribution of executives across these follower subsets:

1. 0 to 2,250 followers
2. 2,251 to 3,500 followers
3. 3,501 to 5,500 followers
4. 5,501 to 9,000 followers
5. 9,901+ followers

Average Post Views

The first thing I looked at was: how many views does an average post receive? Here’s what I found:

As expected, the more followers you have, the more views your average post receives. Specifically:

1. 0 to 2,250 followers: 922 views
2. 2,251 to 3,500 followers: 2,082 views
3. 3,501 to 5,500 followers: 3,261 views
4. 5,501 to 9,000 followers: 5,094 views
5. 9,901+ followers: 7,812 views

It’s important to note that only you can view your own post Views. So, when considering this data, unfortunately, you’ll only have yourself to compare to these averages.

Average Likes per Post

Unlike Views, Likes are visible to everyone on LinkedIn. So, you’ll be able to test these results out against posts that you see in your newsfeed.

Understanding the relationship between Views and Likes is one of the most elusive pieces of data to date. Sometimes I have a post with TONS of likes and few views. Sometimes, it’s the opposite.

Here’s what I found in my own data set:

What stood out to me is the apparent “winner takes all” scenario of Likes for executives with a larger audience. The 9,001+ subset had a disproportionate amount of Likes compared to the others (which was not true of views).

This was similar with Comments - the graphs were nearly identical.

Again, here’s the specific data in case that is helpful in your own self-comparison:

1. 0 to 2,250 followers: 14 Likes
2. 2,251 to 3,500 followers: 36 Likes
3. 3,501 to 5,500 followers: 45 Likes
4. 5,501 to 9,000 followers: 55 Likes
5. 9,901+ followers: 101 Likes

Average Number of Posts

The most important insight for me was reinforcing something I’ve seen in other data analysis we’ve conducted: the more you post, the better you perform.

Over the same time interval, I looked at how many times each executive posted on LinkedIn. As expected, those with the largest audience publish content the most frequently on LinkedIn:

There is obviously the question of causation or correlation here. However, we’ve seen in other analysis that when an executive posts more frequently, their average post performance increases. (This also is predicated on the assumption that the content is actually good.)

How does this compare to you?

I recognize the data set I’m using is relatively small. So I’d love to hear how this data compares to your own observations. Based on your follower count, do these numbers seem too high? Too low?

Also, is there other information you’re wanting to know? Let me know and I’ll do my best to address in a subsequent newsletter.